Ernest Haycox

by Stephen L. Tanner

For most of the century "serious literature" has been sharply distinguished from "popular fiction," the former being characterized by its best examples, and the latter, unfortunately, by its worst. As a genre, westerns - dubbed "horse operas" by some critics - have been no exception to this overgeneralization, and Ernest Haycox, who authored dozens upon dozens of novels and stories true to the genre, has not managed to escape such reductive categorization. In this engaging, thought-provoking examination of Haycox's writing, Stephen L. Tanner broadens such a narrow critical perspective to address this long-standing literary dichotomy: How does one evaluate a first-rate author in an allegedly second-rate genre? Looking at Haycox's prolific, highly disciplined, and often anguished career, Tanner goes on to ask, Was Haycox a failed serious novelist or a masterful writer of romantic adventure? . Tanner seeks to answer these questions by analyzing the westerns themselves, which Haycox wrote